Shatterglass
by We Are Not Pleased
Summary: For a split-second Ellone could smell the sweet scent of the honeysuckles growing wild in the field outside the orphanage's stone walls, and then--then it all fell away. FFIV, VII, VIII, X, XII.
1. one

_**S h a t t e r g l a s s**_

_-katmillia, irishais, seventhe, drakonlily-_

_**One.**_

It was raining in Esthar when Rinoa stumbled off the train, holding on tightly to the conductor's hand as she descended the short set of steps.

"Are you alright, miss?"

Rinoa nodded. "I need a taxi," she said all in one breath, as if something would escape if she tried to say too much. The conductor nodded, and pointed her in the direction of the terminal.

"Straight out there," he said kindly. "Be careful, miss, it's raining pretty hard."

Her reply was distant, faint-- "I know."

It was by luck that she found her way out into the miserable grey that currently served as early morning; Rinoa slipped into one of the waiting taxis and gave the driver an address up on the more expensive end of town. Somewhere in the depths of her purse, her mobile phone rang, the specific ringtone that she had assigned to Squall loud and insistent.

She ignored it. A few seconds later, the phone went silent. For everyone's sake, the cab driver didn't say anything, just glanced into the rear view mirror at her.

Her phone went off again.

_xx_

Ellone Loire's building sat on the corner of one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Esthar, and Rinoa handed over a fistful of gil to the driver. She didn't wait for her change, and nearly slipped on a puddle on the neat clear-glass roads as she exited the cab.

The desk clerk looked her over critically as Rinoa entered the lobby. "Are you a guest?" she asked, stiffly polite.

"Ellone Loire is--"

"Rinoa." Ellone stepped off the elevator before Rinoa could finish her sentence. "Over here."

To say Rinoa looked haggard would have been an understatement- there were dark circles under the young woman's eyes and her hair was partially askew. Ellone wasn't even sure why she was surprised by the sudden appearance in the lobby of her flat building, but she'd felt something in her chest, like a tightness, a ripple through her magic that had heralded the Sorceress' arrival.

She felt like Matron had, once, and it was both comforting and frightening.

"Thank god," Rinoa said, letting out a sigh of relief, moving across the brightly patterned carpet to reach Ellone's side. "I thought- I don't know what I thought."

"I'm glad to see you," Ellone said, and it wasn't a lie. She saw so little of the children lately, and even though Rinoa hadn't been at the orphanage with them, she was still connected to them all, through tiny ribbons of energy and magic. She tasted like the others when Ellone reached out to feel her with her senses- like the others and of darkness, as well, something coiling and writhing. Ellone dropped her reach at once, gesturing to the elevator.

"You should come upstairs," she said, dismissing her original plan of walking to the nearby cafe and getting a warm cup of steaming tea. Rinoa looked like she needed alone time rather than the bustling corner gathering place. "I can make you something, if you'd like."

"Yes," Rinoa said, then nodded. "Thank you."

She followed Ellone into the elevator, and didn't say anything as Ellone gently pressed down on the third floor button, which lit up in response.

_xx_

Ellone gently set a cup of tea in front of Rinoa. The younger woman wrapped her hands around the fragile teacup, drawing the warmth from the drink into her palms.

"Thank you," she said again. "I'm sorry for just...barging in like this, but..."

"It's alright." Ellone sipped her drink, and studied Rinoa carefully. Did Squall know that she was here, looking like she had simply rolled out of bed and taken the first train that she could find?

"I've blocked him out of my head," Rinoa blurted. "I--there's something _in _there, something that wants to just..._hurt_." She clenched her fingers around the teacup. "I don't want him to find me. Not right now."

Ellone nodded, and both women jumped a bit as the phone on the wall rang with a sharp trill. She stood, and answered it before it had a chance to ring again. "Ellone Loire." She paused, then sighed. There was only one person who would call her at this hour. "Hi, Squall. Yes. Yes, she's alright...I don't know if that's a good idea right now...No, I understand, but--"

Rinoa's knuckles whitened against the delicate floral pattern of the cup, and the base of the phone exploded. Ellone flinched, stumbling back, the handset with its severed cord still in her hand.

"Rinoa..."

"I'm _sorry_," Rinoa moaned, hanging her head. "I can't control-- I don't know what's happening to me."

The china cracked under a final burst of pressure from her fingertips, and Rinoa simply sat there, staring at the flood of tea that now spilled across Ellone's kitchen table. Steam wafted up from the puddle in the saucer, and Ellone snatched up a napkin, pressing it into Rinoa's hands to dab up some of the still-hot drink.

Her hands were shaking, but other than the shock-- and distress, Ellone could only imagine-- she didn't seem to be hurt. There was a slight burn on the back of Elle's right hand, where the sparks from the phone had made sharp contact with her skin, but it was of little consequence to the larger problem, which was still sitting across from her, trembling.

"Don't worry about it," Ellone said, and then, a second later, she wasn't sure if she was referring to the phone or the tea that was dripping steadily to the floor. "It's not important."

"It is," Rinoa mumbled, head in her hands, and Ellone could barely understand the words from between her fingers.

"No, it's not," Ellone said again, firmer this time. She dabbed at what she could of the tea without getting down onto the hardwood below the chairs, and gave up when the napkin seemed to have reached its absorbency limit. "What's important is that you're here, and we can try and do something about this. But you'll have to tell me everything."

"Where do I start?" Rinoa asked, looking through her fingers. "I don't even know when it began."

"Well," Ellone said, and then paused, searching for words, "just-- just tell me what you can, then. What makes it go off, and what sort of thing happens when it does, that sort of thing. Maybe there's something I can do."

Rinoa finally uncovered her face, sitting back against the chair, and Elle could almost read the look flickering across the young womans' face- she looked like Ellone had felt many times; despondent, alone, and utterly incapable of handling the hand life had shoved at her. It was the same thing Ellone had felt on the long, never-ending days on the White SeeD ship as she stared across the white-crested waves of the sea. It was despair, and beyond, and she was not happy to see it on Rinoa's delicate features.

"I blew up a laundry basket," she said finally, her voice faint with the absurdity of the situation. "I was...dreaming. " She stopped, unsure of where to go.

"Dreaming of what?"

"There was a castle. Ultimecia's castle--only it wasn't _hers_, it was _mine_, and she kept _telling _me all these things, how she wanted the world remade in _her _image, and how I could do it...And I--I_ wanted _it." The last words came as a half-choked sob. "I _wanted_ it. When Squall woke me up..." Rinoa kneaded the fabric in her soft pants, twisting it into tight spirals. "The room was shaking. I was _making _it shake. I was so...so _angry _at him for waking me up." She looked up at Ellone, her eyes wide. "I can't control it anymore. I've tried _so hard_, and I can't control it!"

"Rinoa, it's alright...maybe we _should _get Squall here. Maybe there's something he can do. Maybe he could...stabilize it somehow."

"No." Her voice was desperate, panicky. A neatly arrange stack of cookbooks flung themselves off of their shelf.

Ellone froze. She was, for the first time that evening, genuinely frightened of what the girl could potentially do. Lack of control was something she knew well- how many times had she accidentally entered one of her comrade's dreams while she herself was sleeping? She stayed very still, hoping not to excite any further reactions from the other woman, and went through her own thoughts furiously, trying to find something, anything, that might help.

"I-" she started, and then shook her head, clearing her thoughts. "I could maybe try and send you back-- back to your own past? Or to Edea's, maybe you could grasp a hold of her control there and work it into--"

"Yes," Rinoa said, and the word was a command. "Anything."

But Ellone shook her head, dark strands flying around her face and catching in the corners of her mouth.

"I don't know if it will work," she said, half-pleading. She was unsure why she was stalling, for it had been her own idea, and she was still shaking in fear of objects continuing to fly across her kitchen of their own accord. "I don't know what it can _do_, I don't--"

"Please," Rinoa interrupted, and her voice was hoarse and choked with emotion. "Please, just do it."

Ellone stood, pushing her sleeves back behind her elbows. It wasn't necessary, but it helped, and she thought wildly she might need all the control she could get. It had been awhile since she'd consciously used her abilities, truly stretched out with them, and for a moment they hovered just beyond her reach, as if she had disused them for simply too long. She closed her eyes, visualizing the place she held so easily in her memory-- Edea's flower garden. It was important to both women, and it would be an anchor.

"Just- just stay still," Ellone said. Her tone sounded strained. Had she ever had to ask anyone to refrain from moving before? Her hands were shaking as she placed her fingertips lightly on the tabletop. "I-- here we go."

The world exploded around her in a shriek of colors and lights. They blurred past her vision as they always did-- bits and pieces of times she was not able to connect to, or older memories she could not properly latch onto. They whirled and roiled and screamed, but she pushed through them, until she saw a burst of light in front of her closed eyes. For a split-second she could _smell _the sweet scent of the honeysuckles growing wild in the field outside the orphanage's stone walls, and then--

--then it all fell away.


	2. two

_**Two. **_

Squall had not been feeling himself lately, and he was fairly certain that most of it had to do with Rinoa. It was hard for anyone else to notice the changes in her recently, how she wasn't quite herself anymore, just as he wasn't himself. Squall knew that he wasn't the one guiding this change-- sure, he clung to Rinoa like a survival blanket at times, but if he was going to be smothered by something, he preferred it to be her.

A small part of him hated the power she held over him.

The other parts of him belonged to a Knight and therefore to her entirely. When she said she was leaving, that tiny bit of his own pride allowed him to let her leave. She wasn't going to stay away, he knew. She never did.

It didn't help the fact that she wasn't there. She _wasn't there._

With a snarl, Squall pitched his phone against the wall and resisted the urge to let his fist follow it. It was obsessive, it was crazy. But she wasn't there and it was driving him to do insane things. He left the room and paced angrily.

He couldn't feel her around. It was like he'd been cut adrift in the ocean.

Squall wasn't generally prone to freaking out, but she wasn't _there_. Moving around the house did absolutely nothing to make him feel closer to her. He'd paced every room countless times like a hungry, caged lion. His head was swimming by the time he made it back to the bedroom to clean up the bits of phone.

A sudden pain exploded in Squall's head, driving him to his knees.

_And then the world melted away from him._

_xx_

"Squall...wake up."

Her voice was gentle. The sharp, jarring pain against his ribcage was not.

"Wake _up_, Squall."

Something kicked him in the ribs again, and he rolled onto his back, forcing his eyes open. "Rinoa?" he mumbled, his voice sounding scratchy and disused, as if he hadn't spoken for a long, long time.

"It's alright, Squall. It's time to get up."

Sharp nails dug into his forearms, and Rinoa hauled him to his feet. He stood, warily, and she let go. When he looked down at his arms, Squall realized that she had drawn blood.

"Rinoa, what's--"

She smiled at him, and it was Ultimecia's smirk that stretched across her lips. "It's time to start fresh," Rinoa said, and when she lifted her hand to brush a lock of hair out of his face, the soft blue knit of her armwarmer glided against his cheek, and her thoughts were just as feather-soft at the edges of his mind. _It's time for a new world_.

He blinked at her, his mouth half-open to ask her what the hell was wrong, but she kept her eyes fixed on him, and he found that he _couldn't_ speak. Suddenly and with perfect, calming clarity, Squall's whole purpose stretched before him. It was a humble, simple existence behind the attention.

He would stand to protect her ideals and her glory and her needs. Squall would do what he wanted to do in the long run. Melt away into the greater good. He would melt away for her, and do anything she needed him to do.

He was her Knight, her protector and she forever commanded his loyalty.

The world wasn't any of Squall's concern, it never had been. He was always driven to do what needed to be done. He could feel in his soul what was important in the world.

Now his world was so simple. All he needed was what he had, Ultimicia was Rinoa, and she was his world.

_Good boy._

Rinoa's smile widened, and almost immediately, it disappeared. Her eyes narrowed-- for a moment, it felt as if she was looking through him.

"There are others here," she said, her voice gone absolutely cold. "Find them."

She turned away, the trailing end of her bright blue duster fluttering behind her, and his Sorceress disappeared into the inky black shadows.

_xx_

When Ellone opened her eyes, she couldn't see anything.

There was only darkness surrounding her, and an ache in the back of her head, almost like she'd eaten ice cream too fast. Her temples were pounding with her heartbeat, and when she raised a hand to run her fingers over her hairline, she was at least pleased she had control over her limbs. Her other hand was lying on something cold and hard- stone tiles, she determined, after feeling around a bit and letting her palms lay on the mortar.

She didn't know what had happened, but she remembered the explosion of color and then--

--Rinoa.

Ellone turned over, ignoring the pangs of pain that ran down through her arms, and pushed herself up onto her hands and knees. She needed to know where Rinoa was. If she'd somehow lost control of her power, or sent her flying into the past, there was no telling what could happen, and the younger girl had been so unstable in Ellone's kitchen anyway...

Ellone swallowed hard. She still couldn't see anything, so any hopes that her night vision simply hadn't adjusted yet were gone. Wherever she was, it most definitely was _not _the hardwood of her apartment, and the realization gave her a twisting sensation in her stomach. Something bad had happened, something very, very bad, and she didn't know what it was. She didn't know where she was, or where Rinoa was.

And the worst part was that she could still feel the tingles in the back of her mind. She was still connected to something, and she couldn't sever it. Whatever she was doing subconsciously, it was trickling over now, and the consequences--

--she had to push the thought from her mind. It was too disastrous to think of what could happen with her mind still connected to the ribbons of time and Rinoa's Sorceress abilities out of control.

She had to find Rinoa. That was the most important thing.

Ellone steadied herself, and stood up.

_xx_

His first thought was that the chick from the bar must've slipped something into his beer. Seifer blinked hard against the dusty air as he opened his eyes, and found himself not on the world's most uncomfortable mattress, but flat on his back against stone. He stared in blank incomprehension at absolutely nothing for a long moment.

"Son of a bitch..."

He held out his hand in front of his face, and discovered that he couldn't see it.

"...Who's there?" A woman's voice, slightly breathless, moderately panicked, and sounding _very _familiar. Where the hell did he know that voice from?

Seifer swore again, and sat up, wincing at the sharp pain in his spine. Never again, no more Trabia fire whiskey, _never _fucking again. Gingerly, he ran his fingers over the back of his skull. They came away clean--at least he hadn't busted his head open on the stones.

"Seifer?"

He turned his head carefully. "Give the girl a prize."

Ellone pursed her lips to show that she was decidedly _not _pleased, but he couldn't see the action anyway. He sounded, for the most part, like she felt-- haggard, and in a bit of pain. The idea of not being alone had more merit than anything else had so far-- even if it was with perhaps the most uncooperative person she could have been stuck with.

"Where are we?" he asked, and she wished she had an answer for him.

"I don't know," she answered honestly, for there seemed to be little use for lying when it was clear neither had any idea of wherever-- and, she thought with a shudder, _whenever_-- they were. "It's-- I think it's a room of some kind."

"Brilliant," he quipped, and she bit back a scathing retort, and instead busied herself with feeling along the walls and floors, hoping that her palms would eventually graze over a crack or a portal rather than more mortar and tiles. It seemed to be a lost cause without a light source, for she couldn't see if she was moving in a circle or not, and the room could extend for miles and she wouldn't know it.

"We need to find a way out," she told him. "We need to find Rinoa."

"Rinoa?" he asked, and she didn't care for the way his voice went cold.

Seifer got to his feet, and then abruptly, Ellone could make out his heavy boots stomping away from her.

"Wait!"

The boots stopped, and with the absence of sound, Ellone moved tentatively in the direction that she thought he had gone. "Do you have a lighter or something?" she asked.

"I didn't know Leonhart's sister smoked," he said with mocking accusation, and she could _hear _the smirk in his tone. Ellone frowned.

"To see which way we're going," she informed him, taking a few more steps sort of in his direction, and running smack into him. "Sorry."

A glowing blue square appeared out of the darkness to her right, and Ellone nearly jumped. Seifer chuckled near her ear-- he had never been this much of a jerk, had he? He tilted the cell phone so that he could see the screen.

"I don't have much power, but it'll do."

There was a scuffling nearby, and Seifer whirled away from her, moving the phone out of Ellone's field of view. It was very black again.

"Who's there?" Seifer called, his voice challenging.

_xx_

The blue spot of light came closer to her, and it was then that Yuna was convinced that this was the Farplane.

The pyrefly stopped, a bit away from her face, and Yuna stared at it. She didn't recall pyreflies having numbers on them, nor them being shaped like blocks. She must have hit her head harder than she thought. On the one hand, it meant she probably wasn't dead. On the other...

"I am Yuna," she said, schooling her voice in the way that Sir Auron had shown her. "I am the high summoner from Besaid."

The man's voice was dry, sarcastic. "Summon us a fucking candle or something, then," he replied. He sounded like Gippal-- all barbs and wit.

Yuna nodded, and doubted that he could see the motion. "Stand back," she said, and held out her hand. She didn't know if she could hold it for very long, like Lulu could, but at least it would give them a moment of light. Give _her _a moment of light.

The light that erupted around her was far, far more than she had anticipated, and for a long moment, Yuna was convinced that the sudden jerking sensation she'd felt had altered her magical abilities. It took her a second to find that the light was not coming from between her cupped palms as she had anticipated– instead, it was coming from the space next to her, the open area which had previously been completely black.

There was a young woman there, smiling in a slightly smug manner with one hand outstretched, fingers curled back around a glowing ball of fire that gave the room a distinctly orange glow.

"I've got it," the newcomer said, and Yuna dropped her hands back down to her sides. The woman with the light glanced to her side and took in the two others, the sarcastic one and the smaller girl, without much surprise. If she was shocked at all by the strange surroundings, or the oddity of not knowing anyone else, she did not show it. "You wouldn't happen to have an explanation for all of this, would you?"

"You– are you a Sorceress?" the girl with the blue sweater asked. She sounded worried, and Yuna did not miss the emphasis on the last word.

"Something like that," the girl with the light said dryly.

_xx_

Ellone was not pleased.

It was obvious that something terrible had happened as a result of her and Rinoa's ability test– the two newcomers seemed to be just as confused as they were, and particularly odd. The girl with the brown hair was wearing strange clothing, her shirt adorned with a symbol Ellone did not know the meaning to, and the girl with the light had hair the color of molten emeralds that curled in waves around her shoulders. They both gave off the distinct feeling of magic, making the ribbons bend and jerk around them, but neither seemed particularly dangerous.

"Seifer, you can close your phone now," Ellone said, gesturing to the now overpowered blue glow from his cell. "I don't think they're going to hurt us."

"You don't think," he said, sneering. "I'm so glad you're here to tell me these things."

"Watch it," the girl with the green hair said, and Ellone didn't want to press anything as long as she had the fire still contained in the palm of her hand. She might not be a Sorceress– not in the same way Rinoa was, for Ellone didn't feel the same essence of magic coming from them, but she had a great deal of power. They didn't need more enemies, the situation was enough of one.

"We need to find a way out," Ellone said, deciding that since the situation was half her responsibility, she should probably step up.

"I don't even know where we are," the girl with the fire said, and tilted her head to one side. "Where are we?"

Seifer's eyes narrowed as he completed his look around the room, thanks to the green-haired girl's light. Ellone sighed. She had a feeling that he knew something the rest of them didn't.

"Seifer?"

"Ultimecia's castle," he said darkly, and turned away from them, heading for a set of massive doors. Ellone took a deep breath, then moved after him.

"Seifer!" she called.

What on earth had she_ done_?


	3. three

_**Three. **_

"Wait," the woman with the green hair said. Her request didn't stop Seifer– as very little would– but Ellone paused and turned, the heavy feeling in her chest twisting and tightening. She could scarcely breathe for the fear that had overtaken her thoughts. "Where is he going? Are we sure we should leave?"

"You don't have to do anything," Seifer growled. He had nearly moved out of range of the fire's warm glow, and his footsteps were still audible in the keen silence. Ellone wasn't sure who to side with– she couldn't very well let Seifer wander about the castle alone, and he seemed to be the only one who knew the way through the corridors, but the others were just as confused as she was, if not more so, and she couldn't leave them alone either.

"Seifer, just– just wait," she called out, hoping he would listen, if only for a moment. "Listen, Yuna and–"

"Rydia," the green-haired woman said.

"Rydia," Ellone finished. "If he's right, and we're in Ultimecia's Castle, we shouldn't split up. I don't know what's here, and I don't know what will happen, but we should probably stay together."

The two strangers looked at each other, sharing a glance that seemed both significant and suspicious at the same time. Rydia raised both eyebrows, and Yuna bit the inside of her lip, shrugging slightly.

"Does he know where he's going?" Yuna asked, breaking the silence. "Is there a way out?"

Ellone glanced in Seifer's direction, but could no longer see the outline of his coat in the glow. When he didn't answer, she could only assume that he didn't have one– and the notion was not a comforting one. All she knew of Ultimecia's Castle was the dark feeling she got within the magic of Time Compression, a tingling that wormed itself beneath her skin. She'd seen flashes of it as she'd thrown the children into it– flashes of a dark place, shrouded in mystical energy and covered in secrets. The children themselves had rarely spoken of what had transpired within the stone walls, and she could hardly blame them. She got goosebumps just thinking about the chamber they were in being part of the castle itself.

"I don't know," Ellone answered honestly, after a long pause.

"Why should we trust you?" Rydia asked, her face hard.

"Because," Ellone started, and then sighed, swallowing hard, "I think I might have been the one to bring you here."

_xx_

Xu came to in the hall of mirrors, sitting up sharply with a half-shout on her lips and her fingers tight around the gun in her hand before she realized that the people surrounding her were reflections of herself. An entire identical army of mussed brown hair, rumpled pajamas and guns pointing right at her.

She lowered her gun slowly, and was slightly comforted when the horde of mirror-Xus did the same.

What the hell had just happened? If this was some new field-test that Commander Leonhart had come up with, well, she was going to have _words_ with him over that...six days in the Centran desert, then the first real sleep she had gotten in weeks, and now mirrors. A bunch of huge fucking mirrors.

Xu decided that Quistis must have talked Squall into this. It was the sort of logic puzzle that the instructor was always bemoaning Garden's lack of. With a sigh, Xu pulled herself to her feet, testing her limbs to make sure nothing had broken in the violent impact with the cobblestone floor.

At least she'd grabbed her gun before the world went to shit.

There was a flicker of red motion out of the corner of her eye, and Xu whirled, her gun out in front of her and her finger steady on the trigger.

"Easy," the figure in red said, stepping toward her with a great long sword over his shoulders. "I will not hurt you."

"Put down the sword, and we'll talk," Xu snapped. She'd had far too much experience with psychos and giant gunblades to really trust anyone wielding a sword so carelessly.

...Okay, so it had been one psycho with one gunblade, but the principle still remained.

"There are no fiends here," the man said, his voice level, as if the idea was absolutely absurd. "It is safe."

"_Put down the fucking sword_," Xu repeated, her tone hard. It was the same that she used drilling cadets; it had been specially designed to get an immediate response. The man raised an eyebrow at her voice, but lifted the blade from his shoulders as if it were featherweight, bringing it point down into the ground. There was something about the way that small orbs of brightly colored lights burst from the tip as it met the floor that made Xu profoundly uncomfortable.

"I'd appreciate it if you would do the same." He nodded at her gun, and Xu debated for a moment, then lowered it a fraction. "My thanks."

Xu simply narrowed her eyes at him. "Who are you? And where is this?"

He had the gall to chuckle a bit, and Xu's finger itched to pull the trigger. "I am Auron, and I believe the more important question at hand is _when _is this."

_xx_

Seifer stalked through the long corridors, his feet on autopilot, pacing familiar hallways. God_damn_ Sorceresses, and even if Ellone wasn't a Sorceress, goddamn her, too.

"Seifer, will you please _stop_?"

He ignored the Loire girl's pleading, and pushed hard against an intricately engraved door. At least the lighting had improved somewhat; dripping wax candles in ornate sconces littered the walls every few feet.

The door opened with a long creak, a death rattle of wood against stone, and he had barely made it more than a meter into the room when something leaped out of the shadows and slammed him against the floor. Hot saliva dripped onto Seifer's face as Rinoa's pet dog stood on his chest and snarled in his face. Behind him, Ellone let out a short scream.

"Get off of me, you stupid mutt!" Seifer shoved the dog hard, and swore violently as Angelo sunk her teeth into his forearm. Angrily, Seifer pushed his free hand against Angelo's face, covering her eyes, and tore his arm out of her grasp. Plenty of skin came away with tearing coat fabric, and the pain very nearly made his eyes water. The dog growled at him, her haunches up in the air, ready to launch again at a single wrong move.

The dog had always hated him, sure, but she'd never gone out of her way to make him part of her daily diet. Seifer glared right back at her.

"Angelo. Come."

With the command that floated out of the darkness before them, Angelo turned away from Seifer immediately, puppy-calm as she trotted away.

"Rinoa?" He moved forward, after the dog, but the darkness only grew as he pressed onward. Rinoa did not respond. "Rinoa, what the fuck is going on?"

Nothing. He couldn't hear anything but his and Ellone's breathing.

_"Rinoa!"_

_xx_

"I think we've lost them," Yuna said, after a long moment of silence, when all Rydia could hear was the jagged rhythm of her own breathing. The walls were still stone, and still cold, and the darkness was still almost overbearing in its completeness, and yet she was somewhat glad that she was not alone amidst the maze-like corridors, even if she knew little more than her companion's name.

They were stuck in what appeared to be a circular room, with six identical portals lining the walls– portals shrouded in shadows so thick that Rydia could not see what lay beyond them. None of them had any identifying markings, and they had lost sight of the two figures they had been following several minutes ago– or, she assumed it to be minutes, but time could be passing at alarming rates in such a place. The thought twisted in her stomach, adding to the nervous tension there.

"Do we continue?" Yuna asked from Rydia's right. Rydia didn't answer, but she did hold her hands up higher near one of the doorways, hoping that the flames that still danced in her palm would shed some light past the openings. She was wrong– either her magic was not what she thought it was, or the inky blackness was made of far more than simply the absence of light. The darkness was playing tricks with her mind, and she did not much care for it.

"I don't even know which way to follow," Rydia said, finally, keeping her eyes on the portals as well as she could.

"How did we get so far behind?" Yuna half-moaned, and Rydia was unsure if the other woman wanted a response. The startling loss of sight ahead of them had been rather abrupt, almost as if the distance between the two parties had stretched due to some outside forces. It was only another puzzle in the growing list of them, and without their guide, they had no idea where they were going or how to begin trying to solve it.

"This whole castle is magic," Rydia mused. The fire in her hands flickered as if in response. "Is there any sort of tracking spell you can do?"

Yuna looked surprised.

"No," she answered, slowly, as if thinking the question over. "I don't know of anything."

"Me neither," Rydia sighed. "And I can't start a warp spell without knowing where my destination is."

The two looked at each other, and Rydia grimaced.

"Well," she said, shoulders slumping forward. "What do we do now?"

_xx_

"Where did she go?" Ellone asked, between sucking in glorious bursts of oxygen to her screaming lungs. She bemoaned her own lack of exercise, and had to admit surprise at Seifer's speed– perhaps Squall was keeping his cadets in far better shape than she had remembered being necessary. "Did we lose her?"

"Dammit, I can't see anything!" Seifer growled, though she wasn't sure if his anger was directed at her or the shadows currently blocking their path. Ellone was sure she had heard Rinoa's voice– but even Seifer, it seemed, hadn't managed to catch a glimpse of the dark-haired girl in the blackness. Ellone hadn't felt any stirrings in her magic when the voice had emerged– shouldn't she have felt something, _anything_, even if only remnants of the Time Compression spell?

She bent down, wheezing, wishing that Seifer would stop long enough for her to properly catch her breath.

"This place is a fucking maze," Seifer growled, ahead of her, and she was inclined to agree. They'd lost the others– Elle had glanced behind her during the blind pursuit, but their footsteps had suddenly stopped, and she'd been unable to find them again. She hoped they were alright, at least, or making better progress than she and Seifer were.

"What now?" she asked Seifer, when she felt steady enough to try speaking again. He didn't answer, and for a split second, she was overcome with terror, thinking she had lost him, too. "Seifer?"

She could hear his footsteps, even though she couldn't see him, and they began moving again, toward the direction Rinoa's voice had come from.

_"Seifer!"_

"This way," he said suddenly, and fingers brushed against her shoulder, then her arm, and finally, Seifer's hand settled around her wrist, pulling her along behind him as he went left. She supposed she ought to have been grateful that he had come back for her, but Ellone was more focused on trying to stay on her feet at his fast pace than anything else.

The darkness slowly lifted as they walked, and as soon as Seifer could see again, he dropped his hold on Ellone's wrist. The candles in their sconces flickered as he broke contact, nearly going out. The flames flickered back to life, though, before he could worry about the darkness swallowing them up again. He looked back over his shoulder, past Ellone. The hall that they had just come through gradually faded back into darkness the further ahead he looked.

_Nice trick,_ he thought darkly.

"What are those?" she asked, and he glanced to his left at the portals along the wall, black holes that could have been mistaken for modern art if he hadn't known any better. Seifer shrugged.

"I don't know."

"You've been here before, you have to know--"

"I don't _know_," Seifer snarled, and turned away from her, stalking across the floor in the direction that they had been heading in.

"Wait," Ellone said, as he made for the door at the other end of the hall. "I can hear something."

Seifer groaned, but moved closer to the portals as Ellone did. She leaned forward, her hand outstretched to touch the inky darkness. "Don't touch that," he snapped, and she looked up at him.

"Why not?"

Seifer's expression contorted for a second, and then he shrugged. "It's your funeral," he said, and then shut up as a third voice floated into their conversation.

_"--do we do now?"_

Ellone looked sharply at him. "Isn't that Rydia?"

Seifer shrugged again. "How the fuck would I know?"

_xx_

"Wait," Yuna said suddenly, and Rydia did as she requested, halting her feet in her movement around the circular dead-end of sorts they were stuck in. The brunette seemed to be concentrating on something, her head cocked to one side, toward the passageway she was closest to. She pursed her lips and then motioned, suddenly, for Rydia to move closer to her, and the mage could do little more than comply.

For a long second, Rydia couldn't hear anything, and then, as if the words were being carried on the breeze she could hear snippets, tiny fragments of sound that barely formed themselves into words.

_"... would I know?"_

"Is that–?" Rydia started, and at the same time Yuna began, "That's–"

They both stopped and looked at each other. The voice had definitely been male, and had definitely sounded like Seifer had, sarcasm and all. At the same time, as if on cue, both woman turned back to the doorway the voice had emerged from. The sound drifted away again, gone almost as quickly as it had arrived, and Rydia could hear her own labored breathing heavy in her ears. She couldn't tell if she was glad or frightened by the notion before them.

"You definitely heard that?" Yuna whispered, as if she was afraid to break the silence. For the first time, Rydia noticed a flash of steel hanging on her belt– a weapon, she surmised, and she was disappointed in her herself for not noticing sooner.

"Do we follow?" Rydia replied. There was another moment of silence that hung between them, and then Yuna took a hesitant step forward. The tip of her shoe disappeared into the shadows, but nothing else seemed to happen. The brunette turned back to glance at Rydia, and shrugged.

"I think– I think it's our only option," Yuna said, and Rydia was inclined to agree with her. The other woman slowly began moving further within the doorway, until she was half-immersed in the darkness, and Rydia followed. She stayed close, for if their earlier experiences were anything to learn from, distance meant nothing within the bounds of the castle, and as she dipped into the blackness she reached a hand out to clasp her fingers around the back of Yuna's shirt.

"It seems like a tunnel," Yuna said, voice low. The sound echoed through the corridor around them, and Rydia wondered exactly how close the walls were. "I can't see, but it seems straight."

"Keep your hands out, then," Rydia responded. The fire in her hand had gone out the moment she'd stepped within the shadows, and she'd extinguished the spell, having no need for it if it could not give them light. Her palm felt cold and empty after having held the flames for so long, and she wiped her hand on her tunic as if to rid herself of the sensation.

For a very long time, the two moved with pain-staking diligence through the halls, and after awhile, Rydia's hopes of finding the others fell again. Seifer's voice could not have come from so far away that they would still be searching, and she didn't know what that meant.

Suddenly, Yuna pitched forward. Light flooded Rydia's senses, blinding her after so long in the dark, and as she threw her hands over her eyes to block the whiteness, she heard the swishing of metal through air, and Yuna's surprised shriek.

_xx_

When the voice disappeared, Elle had to stop herself from reaching into the shadows.

"What happened?" she asked, feeling foolish even as the words left her mouth, for Seifer had been standing beside her the whole time, and would know little more than she did.

"How many times do I have to tell you that I don't know?" Seifer hissed. He moved away from the darkness, as if already disinterested in it. "Let's go."

"But–" Ellone started, and realized it was useless. Arguing with Seifer would get her nowhere, and the fragments of Rydia's voice had already long since faded into nothing. "Right. Let's keep moving then."

_xx_

Rinoa sat in Ultimecia's glorious throne, her head cradled in expensive velvet, and closed her eyes.

"They are all here, all who would stop us."

The voice was sharp, high, thready and extraordinarily pleased. It took her a moment to realize that her lips moved with the words, the sound echoing all around her in the chamber.

"They're my _friends_.."

"They wish to end us, to keep their imperfect world, and they are fools."

Heavy footsteps, a knight, her knight. She could see him, storming the halls to eradicate her castle of anything that could harm her.

"Squall..." Rinoa murmured, and felt something tighten into a hard knot in her chest when she heard his response, brisk and military:

_Your orders, my lady?_

Rinoa swallowed hard, and when she spoke again, her tone was dismissive, cold, any doubt in her voice folded away into nonexistence. _Haven't you found them yet?_


End file.
